this is a serious question that i'm hearing from washington all the time. so let's talk. we have cnbc contributor jack bernstein, former chief economist, and art laffer, former reagan adviser. i'm not attacking obama or anything. i'm just saying there is a lot of talk of stalemate. well perhaps go through where, why and how. staffs have been meeting unsuccessfully. some people are saying, art, that the scenario is going to be that president finally throws up his hands and says there is no deal, we're going to have a stalemate and we will tall off the fiscal cliff into recession and then he will blame the republicans. what's your take? >> i think he's going to blame the republicans, larry, for sure. and i think in the republican's interest to delay it as long as possible and make the republicans look as uncooperative as possible. but we will fall off the cliff anyway, larry. and i think we will have a very bad year in 2013, even if they do extend all of the tax cuts. i think we have a real bad scenario coming forward. >> jared bernstein, what do you think that the presiden